Historical information

Colour enlargement of a photograph (slide) of Southesk (formerly Ordsall) in Cotham Road, Kew (demolished 1970).

Physical description

A colour photograph of the façade of ‘Southesk’ taken at an oblique angle. Formerly known as ‘Ordsall’, the house was built for John Halfey in 1882 on the corner of Cotham Road and Charles Street. The Italianate mansion was built in the Renaissance villa style on a bluestone plinth. Two balustrades surrounded the parapet of the roof and ran between the groups of pillars on either side of the entrance porch. The verandah was tiled and wide and Corinthian columns supported its roof. When the house passed into the hands of the City of Kew in 1948, the Council used it for a kindergarten, an elderly citizen centre and as a home for the Leo Baeck Centre. The house was demolished in 1970.